The deadline was midnight last night
On October 24, the AFC held a press conference and made two statements that reverberated throughout the political world in Guyana. The first set of words was the reason for the meeting with the press.
It was to declare the AFC’s rejection of the constant delay in the PNC accepting the AFC’s nomination of Khemraj Ramjattan as the PM candidate for the 2020 election and it would no longer participate in the reconstruction of the Cummingsburg Accord if there isn’t an acceptance of Ramjattan.
The second pronouncement was in the form of an ultimatum. The French would say fait accompli. The AFC insists that Ramjattan be accepted because it is not prepared to discuss the issue; it was a done deal for the AFC.
Apart from these two emanations, the media was told that there could no longer be the regular dialogue of the two parties on the renewal of the Cummingsburg Accord and a direction will be left to a formal tête-à-tête between the leader of the PNC, Granger and his AFC counterpart, Ramjattan.
On Thursday, October 31, the tête-à-tête occurred but one can say in a kind of way that it never happened. The French terms denotes a meeting of a sensitive or personal or informal nature between two persons only.
The October 31 meeting was between the respective leaders and the chairman of the PNC, Volda Lawrence, and General-Secretary of the AFC, David Patterson.
In a colossal abandonment of moral and civic obligation to the nation the four persons have chosen not to disclose what was agreed upon at that face-to-face event (see my column of Monday, November 4, 2019, “Are these the people that will negotiate for Guyana?” in which I observed; “Both Granger and Ramjattan, both APNU and AFC have not seen it morally proper, politically obligatory and electorally wise to tell the people of Guyana what is the decision they made on the PM candidate.”
On Saturday, November 2, 2019, the AFC held a statutory meeting of its thirty-five member executive and in what could only and must be described as the politics of slavery, Ramjattan and Patterson in another gigantic example of the contempt that reside deep inside ruling politicians, did not disclose to the other 33 persons what was discussed on October 31 with the President.
I refer to my column of Wednesday, November 6, 2019, “Is the PPP more democratic that its rival organizations?” in which I wrote; “(the leaders) flatly refused to tell the executive on whose behalf it negotiates with the PNC what was the decision its leader, Ramjattan, made with the leader of the PNC, Mr. Granger when they met last Thursday.
“It is the executive that directs what the AFC does. The leaders have to report to the executive.”
It is incredible that 33 persons just sat like robots or slaves or nincompoops and did not ask their leaders to report to them. If you believe in God, pray that these people do not run Guyana on their own after the March 2020 elections. Anyway, that school of 33 sheep along with Ramjattan and Patterson took the decision to resume negotiations with the PNC and set November 10 as the deadline to accept Ramjattan as the PM candidate.
What happens now? The time was up on the stroke of midnight yesterday. I am typing this before that hour so I would not know this morning or this afternoon, or evening what will be the reaction of the AFC. But this I and the entire country know – since the deadline was set, the president has spoken his mind.
He told the Kaieteur News radio that he will make his judgement on who will be his running mate. He did not name any person. In that interview, he repeated what he elaborated on before – he will select the person he thinks is the best candidate and that person must be open to scrutiny.
I think the AFC has finally seen the rigorous side of the PNC. It called the PNC’s bluff and failed. It is unthinkable for the PNC later today to announce that it has accepted Ramjattan. It would lose credibility in the eyes of every part of the globe where Guyanese live and in the CARICOM region.
Even a school boy will tell you that if you put an ultimatum and the other side meekly agrees, then human nature will dictate you put another and another. If I know some of the PNC leaders well, there is no way on this date, Monday November 11, they will announce that they have approved of Ramjattan.
All Guyana will now see what the AFC is made of.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper)